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Detainees Earned No Extra Legal Privileges

Over 400,000 lawful Prisoners of War were held in the United States during World War II without one call for extra legal privileges for them. Habeas corpus was suspended then for dry foot German saboteurs, who were captured, tried by military commission, and then most executed, all within four weeks time. Why is it then, when all Americans have been targets for Islamist extremists since the death of Marine CPL Stephen Crowley in Islamabad, Pakistan, back on November 21, 1979, when he was murdered by one when the U.S. embassy there was stormed by bussed-in radicals (later to be funded by Osamma bin Laden) on false news reports the U.S. had seized the mosque at Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, and after Iranian “students” had seized the U.S. embassy in Teheran, Iran weeks before, on news that the Shah of Iran had been allowed into the United States for treatment of an illness, and fast forward to today, when we have troops in 75 countries (including those we defeated in WWII), CIA in over 90 countries, and Diplomatic Security Service in over 200 countries, that we pay so much attention to a comparative handful of UNLAWFUL COMBATANT Islamist extremists who want to kill us? These detainees BROKE Geneva Convention rules, and our own Law of Land Warfare (US Army Field Manual 27-10 Warfare http://ac-support.europe.umuc.edu/~nstanton/FM27-10.htm ) during war time, and BY LAW have earned NO EXTRA LEGAL PRIVILEGES. Also BY LAW, they can be held “until the end of hostilities.” Where is the sanity in even discussing what should become of them? They have ZERO rights, according to LAW. But, because they are held by the benevolent, kind, generous, and moral United States of America, they are treated within the spirit of Geneva, and in accordance with DoD policy (by which they have due process rights – see Military Commissions Act http://www.defense.gov/news/commissionsacts.html ), and in accordance with U.S. Army Regulations governing the care and treatment of detainees. All Gitmo detainees are lucky to be alive, let alone realistically hoping to receive extra legal privileges. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have told me on two separate occasions, once in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and once in Iraq, that “nobody does [detention operations] better than the U.S.” The detainees are at Gitmo so long as they either pose a risk or are suspected of having valuable information that may aid us in our effort to win the Global War on Terror (Struggle Against Islamist Extremists).

Hi Geoffrey, Thank you for your comment. I believe it is possible to love your country and also be critical of it. But, you seem to have lost sight of the fact that we were attacked on 9/11/01, and that more people were killed on that day than on 12/7/41 or 6/6/45. Daniel Pearl was tortured and then beheaded by the enemy on video tape. There ARE NO US prisoners held by the Taliban or al Qaeda because they torture and then KILL their captives. I don’t condone torture, abuse or mistreatment of detainees, in fact, my job at Gitmo and then later at detention facilities in Iraq, was to ensure proper treatment and care of detainees. You are wrong about detainees being “innocent,” however. Even the POWs of WWII were not “innocent,” nor were they “guilty” of anything, nor did they legally need to be accused of anything. According to Geneva Convention and our own law of Land Warfare http://ac-support.europe.umuc.edu/~nstanton/FM27-10.htm we can legally detain unlawful combatants “until the end of hostilities.” We have the right to defend ourselves. Al Qaeda and Taliban and soldiers-of-fortune and mercenaries are unlawful combatants. They are not nations who have declared war on us. They do not wear uniforms, nor do they tend to carry weapons openly. In fact, these people pretend to be civilians in order to kill innocent civilians; exactly what the Geneva Conventions were written to prevent. Because the killing of innocents was important to the signators to the Conventions, the consequence of not following the rules is no extra-legal privileges. They are also trained to lie about their treatment. So, if you are an American, I suggest you take special care that you do not provide aid and comfort to the enemy, as that would be treasonous. In my book, you are either with US, or with the terrorists. Hooah!

It is difficult to accept the the theory that 19 ‘suicide’ hijackers, most of whom couldn’t fly Cessna’s and of which many were interviewed within days of the incident conspired to pull off an assault that military pilots stated on the record couldn’t have been done by crack fighter pilots.

Remarkably, there has been blind acceptance of this story, yet the US government has offered no proof whatsoever that bin Laden was behind these attacks.

Many military personnel do not buy the theory as well… from Major General Albert Stubblebine to Lt. Col. Robert Bowman.

Hitler burned his own parliament buildings to blame the enemy. Within days the Enabling Act became law, severely limiting civil rights (similar to the content and timing of the Patriot Act).

With Pearl Harbour, the Roosevelt administration had broken the Japanese codes well before December 7th, and a conscious decision was made to allow the attack on Pearl Harbor to take place. This was intended to provide the necessary impetus for US entry into the Second World War at a time when Great Britain was buckling under the military blitzkrieg, aerial bombing and U-boat warfare of the Third Reich.

The Gulf of Tonkin incident that escalated US involvement in Vietnam was another lie that did not happen but served it’s purpose.

Geoffrey, you seem to have a lot of time on your hands, and are chasing your tail. Today, you can find just about anything to support any kook idea you may have about conspiracies, etc. The reality is that Islamist extremists have been trying to kill us in modern times since at least the murder of U.S. Marine CPL Stephen Crowley, U.S. embassy guard in Islamabad, Pakistan, on November 21, 1979. Look that one up. Power hungry Islamist extremists perpetuate a state of war against all peace-loving people of the world. We must defend ourselves, and effectively, that means taking the fight to the enemy; you are either with US or with the terrorists. Osamma bin Laden was the Barbary Pirate King of his day, and we will continue to fight against his type of oppression, despite ideologues like yourself.

It may be comforting to pretend that our enemies “hate our freedoms,” as President Bush stated, but it is a mistake to ignore the truth.

President Bush is not the first to ask: “Why do they hate us?” In a staff discussion 44 years ago, President Eisenhower asked his National Security Council about “the campaign of hatred against us [in the Arab world], not by the governments but by the people”.

His National Security Council outlined the basic reasons: the US supports corrupt and oppressive governments and is “opposing political or economic progress” because of its interest in controlling the oil resources of the region.

Graham E. Fuller former CIA 8/24/98: “Democratization is not on the American agenda in the Middle East. The reason? Because Washington finds it more efficient to support a range of dictators across the Arab world as long as they conform to U.S. foreign policy needs.”

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This is your government telling you what I just told you. You cannot ignore this truism.

Geoffrey, I am not a Bush apologist, nor a U.S. foreign policy apologist. My point is that whatever has gone on in the past, mistakes by Carter in 1979 included, they are what they are, and we can’t change them, so the realist point of view becomes: how do we survive now? Our system of government is messy and imperfect, but it is still the very best in the world. We have learned to excel and survive in a mean, dirty, and dangerous world. Our enemies are many and varied, and are intent on destroying us and our way of life. We must defend ourselves, and should not give up the initiative we seized at the end of World War II, nor that which we seized in 2003. Already, Barack Hussein Obama has relinquished the high ground in our struggle against Islamist extremists, who unabashedly train children to be suicide bombers, and teach hatred of America to orphaned children in madrasas. We must defeat this enemy like we defeated the Barbary Pirates several hundred years ago, and then take away the means and their will to fight.

The Al Qaeda Legend sustains the “Big Lie”. It turns realities upside down. It creates both a perception and a belief which cannot be questioned. It permeates US foreign policy and the conduct of international diplomacy. Al Qaeda and the “Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT) constitute a central component of US military doctrine.

Nobody seems to take the time to examine “who is this elusive enemy Al Qaeda”, which has succeeded, with limited military means, in confronting America’s multibillion dollar war machine.

The Al Qaeda blanket explanation not only overshadows the normal channels of human comprehension, it also precludes a move to to the next step of rational explanation, which consists in saying: if Al Qaeda is “the cause” as stated in numerous press reports, then “What is Al Qaeda?” and “Who is behind Al Qaeda?”

But these are questions which in the post 9/11 era are rarely addressed. To investigate “Who is behind the terrorists” has become unmentionable, a political taboo, despite evidence pertaining to the historical role of US intelligence in creating and promoting the Islamic jihad.

Today, if Al Qaeda were to be revealed for what it really is, –e.g in the context of a specific false flag terrorist attack– the legitimacy of the “war on terrorism” and those officials in high office who support it, would collapse like a deck of cards.

While the identity of Al Qaeda is fully documented, including its links to US intelligence, the truth has not trickled down to the mainstay of public opinion.

Victor Marchetti, former CIA agent and author of The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, in a 1989 paper, “Propaganda and Disinformation (How the CIA manufactures history)”, had this to say,

“One night, after work, I was walking down Constitution Avenue with a fellow officer, who previously had been a reporter for United Press.
“How are they ever going to know,” he asked.

“Who? How is ‘who’ ever going to know what?” I asked.

“How are the American people ever going to know what the truth is? How are they going to know what the truth is about what we are doing and have done over the years?” he said. “We operate in secrecy, we deal in deception and disinformation, and then we burn our files.

How will the historians ever be able to learn the complete truth about what we’ve done in these various operations, these operations that have had such a major impact on so many important events in history?”

I couldn’t answer him, then. And I can’t answer him now. I don’t know how the American people will ever really know the truth about the many things that the CIA has been involved in. Or how they will ever know the truth about the great historical events of our times.”
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